Further afield, the 24th Battalion had been operating in the vast spaces north of the Francisco River, fanning out as far north as the Markham River and east to Huon Gulf. On 7 August the battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel George Smith, had been told by General Savige that recently captured documents indicated that a battalion of Japanese troops was being tied down in the Buang Valley by 24th Battalion patrols. As Savige stressed, ‘The enemy is there and must be kept there.’ Such operations were not without hazard. On the afternoon of 15 August the Japanese reported an ambush on a six-man Australian patrol at close range and claimed all killed. The Australians had sent two patrols out that day, six men moving along the north bank of the Buang River and another fifteen under Sergeant Wally Fox on the southern bank, heading for the river mouth to lay booby traps. Fox's men crossed three undefended barricades on the main track before being ambushed as they tried going around a fourth, set up between the river and a steep cliff. Fox was killed and Lieutenant Alan Saunders fatally wounded while Private ‘Pop’ McKenzie was wounded in the thigh. Trevor Russell and Sam Manning stayed with McKenzie until they were all found the next morning. The rest of the men pulled back before Harry Paxino and Jack Hourigan returned to get Lieutenant Saunders under cover, staying with him until he died around dusk.